


Christmas

by qthelights



Category: West Wing
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e10 Noel, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-02-05
Updated: 2001-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 15:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qthelights/pseuds/qthelights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My first fandom and the questionable writing choices that come with that :)</p>
    </blockquote>





	Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> My first fandom and the questionable writing choices that come with that :)

It's Christmas.

It’s  three in the morning on Christmas Day and I can’t get any sleep. I took Josh to the emergency room before, got his cut hand checked out and then we came back to my house because it was closest. His hand is fine. He actually didn’t wrap it that badly.

So, we got back home and I made Josh comfortable on the couch, he sleeps there sometimes anyway so he was fine. And then I went to bed, but it turns out, that I can’t sleep.

I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m worrying about Josh, though I don’t feel like that’s what is keeping me up. I think he’s going to be okay. I’m going to help him and I think he’s ready to help himself now.

After lying in bed for about an hour and a half without dozing off I just got up. Pulled on my robe and made some hot chocolate in the kitchen. And now I’m sitting in a chair staring out the window at the snow while Josh sleeps on the couch behind me. He didn’t wake up when I came in. I kept the lights off. I feel torn though, because while I really want him to get a good night's sleep, I also want him to wake up and make me not feel so alone. It’s selfish I know.

It’s Christmas. And I feel so very heartbreakingly alone. Josh is here, but he’s asleep. He’s my friend, but not all the time. By that, I mean Josh can be incredibly sweet and loving. But he has his work, and he gets so tied up in it that everything and everyone comes second. They have to in his mind. And now of course he has all this pain inside him to work through as well.

I feel so horrible that I want him to put his feelings aside and help me. Like I’m telling a child to stop thinking of himself though he knows no better. Especially when I know that Josh hasn’t been thinking of himself. He’s been drowning in himself and thinking of everything except that. Desperately trying to get away from his mind. There isn’t a feeling in this world worse than feeling like your own mind is betraying you, like it’s a separate entity and you can’t control it. I had some problems once. A long time ago. But I know…that feeling never leaves you. The knowledge of how frail you really are. It humbles you. And it scares you.

So, I know what he’s going through to an extent. I’ve never been shot or anything, and I’ve never had posttraumatic stress syndrome. But I’ve had stuff, you know?

Yet, I can’t help wanting his attention. His full attention. And my heart aches that I can feel so selfish, that I can think these things when my… whatever he is to me, when Josh is in so much pain.

It’s Christmas. Without my family. They went away for the holidays. Down to South America, travelling and exploring. It’s what they do. Sometimes I go with them. Since being in the White House, well since before then even, I haven’t had much time to go though. Haven’t let myself have enough time maybe. I don’t want to trespass on my parents’ time together either. They’d welcome me with open arms, and they always do, but sometimes a child has to be an adult about their parents. Strange as that seems. Sometimes you have to mother them.

So, my family isn’t here. And I’m not with them.

It’s Christmas. And I don’t have a tree up. Or a single decoration. It’s depressing. I love Christmas usually. It’s my favorite holiday. Everyone giving gifts, spending time with your family and friends, even though most of that time is spent bickering. It’s familiar. That’s all that matters perhaps.

The thing about decorations is that they allow you to dream. They allow me to, anyway. Everything around you seems to be glinting with gold or blurred with the pastel colours of Christmas lights. Those lights have a power over me. They allow my mind to shut down, leaving only the right thoughts.

When I was a girl, or I should say a little girl, because I still feel like a girl, I would lie underneath the Christmas tree and look up into the branches. We always cut down a real tree, which I loved because the smell of pine was a balm for my heart. And then we’d lace it with tinsel and the lights with the pastel colours, and then I’d lie under it. Stare up through the green needles, the rough bark and the scent of pine, and blur my eyes so the lights went fuzzy and bled together into familiarity.

But I don’t have a tree now. I didn’t have time. Josh actually said he’d help me go and get one. But he forgot. I don’t blame him though. That’s a lie. I do blame him! I do! I want my tree and I want my lights and my family and I want someone to hold me and I’m a good person! Why can’t I have those things? What did I do to be so wretchedly and utterly punished?

There are tears streaming down my cheeks and I can’t see anything out my window anymore. The ghostly pallor of the snow has blurred, prismed into crystals and cotton through my tears. My sobs are wracking my body and I have to hold onto the arm of the chair to try and still myself. And the most fucked up thing about it is that I’m trying to be quiet. I’m trying not to wake him. Him, sleeping behind me. I love him and I hate him and I don’t know what I feel anymore, but I can’t wake him. I want so much to wake him. Oh please let me wake him.

But I can’t.

I sit there, clutching the chair and crying. It feels like my heart is being wrenched out of my chest. This is when I need someone. This is where I’m supposed to have someone. Someone for me. But I don’t.

And it's Christmas.

Eventually…and there’s never been a truer use of the word…eventually I move. I pry myself from my pyre and I move. I am not reborn. I am not the phoenix. I am calmer. My emotions rage inside me, tearing at me, slashing at me, damaging me. But I am calm.

The body shuts down to protect itself sometimes.

Moving to the kitchen, I place my empty mug in the sink. Turn to go and reconsider. I take down a glass from the cupboard and the whiskey bottle from on top of the fridge. I fill the glass. Leaving the bottle on the bench, I move back through the kitchen, to my room. I don’t even have a roommate at Christmas. She’s gone home. To her parents. Her Christmas Tree. Her boyfriend went with her. The cats are in her room though, leaving the couch to Josh.

Entering my room, I sit on the bed. Take a mouthful of my drink, letting it burn my throat.

I don’t feel better.

I don’t feel worse.

I feel bile though. Rising up my throat accompanying a cry of pain and I slam the glass down on my bedside table. It shatters and the amber liquid seeps down the sides of the table, dripping onto my books on the floor.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

I’ve re-enacted the scene. The scene of defeat, of repetition, cessation, suffering. The scene of Josh. He told me. Were this Easter the metaphor would be stronger. The scene of the martyr. But we have not been crucified. We have sacrificed, but not for others. We’ve sacrificed ourselves. Our lives, our emotions, our hearts. For…something. The good of the country? The pleasure of the President? No…it shouldn’t be this way. God bless America?

I’m not cut. My hand I mean. It’s fine. The whiskey is seeping into my carpet now. It ran off the bedside table at a speed a human can’t cope with. Spread everywhere with a velocity too fast.

Josh is at the doorway to my bedroom.

He’s looking at me. Observing. But he says nothing.

He walks over and sits down beside me, the bed sagging downwards at the extra weight. His hands are warm as he takes mine, examining them for wounds.

At some point, my tears must have begun again, though I can’t recall if it was before or after he came into the room.

He gets up, leaves the room…but returns with a towel. Drops it onto the soiled carpet and pushes it down with his foot, letting it soak up the spill. He picks up the alcohol-drowned books. Wipes them off with a hand and places them carefully on a dry part of the carpet.

I say nothing. Just sit there, silently letting the tears drip onto my lap.

Josh moves away from me, over to the other side of the bed. And he gets in. Reaching over and pulling me back into the pillows, drawing the covers up. His arms encircle me, drag me into his chest and I can only cry harder. He’s quiet, and if I had the courage to look up I might see the tears unshed in his eyes, or see the one slide out of the corner of his eye, down into the hair at his temple. But I don’t, burying my face in his chest and soaking his shirt with my sadness. He holds me tight and I cling to him.

He doesn’t know why I cry. But he knows what it is to need to, to have to. To not be able to stop. And he holds me. I realise he’s giving me his attention, but he’s using me too, for comfort. To comfort someone else is to stop having to fight your own demons for a moment. But it’s our compromise. And I can live with it.

It’s Christmas.


End file.
